Flushing Couple Sentenced For Enslaving Two Children

A Queens woman has been sentenced to prison after she and her husband kept two Korean children as slaves in their Flushing home, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown announced on Wednesday.

Sook Yeong Park, 50, was sentenced to two to six years in prison, while her husband, Jeong Taek Lee, 54, was sentenced to five years’ probation for forcing an 11-year-old and her 9-year-old brother to do grueling housework—from cleaning to providing backrubs and pedicures—without compensation.

Park and Lee were entrusted with caring for the siblings in January 2010—and after they arrived, the couple took their passports and limited communication with their biological parents. Park and Lee also forced the children to take outside jobs at nail salons and restaurants and collected all of the children’s earnings.

The children worked approximately 10 hours every day after school doing housework.

The children were physically beaten and forced to sleep on the floors in Park and Lee’s house on 196th Street. The NYPD discovered the abuse after the children reported it to school officials.

“This kind of treatment of another human being is unacceptable and it will not be tolerated in Queens County,” Brown said. “The victims in this case have been reunited with their biological parents in Korea and this resolution allows them to continue with their lives without having to revisit the horrors of their time with the defendants.”

Park pleaded guilty to the crimes in July and, at the time, Brown announced that she would face six months in prison with five years’ probation. But at a recent sentencing, Queens Supreme Court Justice Joseph Zayas issued the sterner sentence.